Hi again Udder 38,
The following comments refer specifically to training in the UK. The question of whether to learn to fly ab-initio on tail wheel aircraft or on tricycles has several ‘pros’ and ‘cons’.
First of all, these are the ‘cons’. The average UK flying club, will have a line of perhaps six or eight Piper or Cessna tricycles, but only one tail-wheel aircraft, usually a Cub or a Citabria. They will have perhaps eight or ten instructors; (full and part-time) all of whom will be able to instruct on the tricycles, but only perhaps two willing or able to instruct on the tail-wheel aircraft – especially when you come to learn wheeler landings.
You can so easily end up with a situation in which there are repeated occasions when you are available to fly, the money to pay for it is available, and the weather is good, but there is either no aeroplane or your instructor is off sick or on holiday. The club you join may be a big club, but for you it might be a very small club.
And if that one Cub or Citab ‘goes tech’, or has to be sent for maintenance, or some idiot breaks it, your flying training will come to an abrupt halt, certainly for weeks and perhaps for months.
As I said above, on tail-wheel your choice of instructor will be extremely limited. Don’t underestimate this last point; the close working relationship that develops between instructor and student is crucial and people don’t always get on well together. You wouldn’t be the first student to have to ask to fly with someone else; but there has to be a someone else you can be passed on to.
Jonkster’s comments are absolutely correct. If you train for your PPL on tail-wheel aircraft it will take longer to get to flying solo and the level of skill required to fly tail-wheel is in all circumstances greater.
Let me elaborate on that. When you make a flight in a tricycle, you can virtually ‘drive’ the aeroplane like a car from the apron to the runway hold and only really commence actually flying when you turn into wind to do your engine run-up. When you land a tricycle, because your centre of gravity is in front of the main undercarriage wheels your momentum will tend to keep you straight. So nearly all your landings will at least be acceptable, even if not brilliant. The tricycle undercarriage is very forgiving of sloppy landing technique – and that is one of its biggest weaknesses. And, of course, after landing you can virtually ‘drive’ your tricycle back to the apron.
With a tailwheel aircraft, you are flying from the moment you release the brakes on the apron, to the moment you arrive back and reapply the brakes. While taxiing, you need to be aware of where the wind is coming from, and how strong it is, at all times. If you taxi upwind, you keep the stick back in your stomach. If you taxi downwind you hold the stick forward to prevent the tail from lifting. If you taxi across wind then you hold the stick into wind. You need to be careful about taxiing over any concreted area with a gradient because you roll like h*ll on concrete. On most tail-wheel aircraft, either you can’t use the brakes at all to stop a roll for fear of tipping over onto your prop, or if brakes can be used at all, then they have to be used gingerly. Best of all just avoid concreted gradients.
During your take-off and landing rolls you need to be conscious of the fact that your centre of gravity is behind the main undercarriage wheels and, given half the chance, the aircraft will deviate to one side or the other in an instant if you do not keep her straight with the rudder pedals. This is especially true on landing when you will find yourself doing the characteristic rudder-pedal tap-dance as you deal instantly with any tendency to deviate to one side or the other on an uneven grass runway.
The thing to appreciate is that tail-wheel flying gives you a constant sensitivity for how the aircraft is interacting with the air that flows around it and how its centre of gravity, in relation to the main undercarriage members, affects its handling on the ground. All this is a valuable to your developing airmanship and something you can’t get form a tricycle.
Good luck with your training, whichever type you choose.
BP.